fmitchell0

There is an important point that is being missed in this conversation. There are facts that are undisputed by both sides of the argument:

- Should a person have a right to privacy? Yes

- Should a person be discriminated based on their beliefs? No

- Should a person in leadership be forced to expose their private life? No

There are two questions, however, that is causing everyone to trip over themselves and table-flip:

- Does a person's private life affect their public views?

- If a person in leadership has their private life exposed (fairly or unfairly), does that affect their leadership role?

If you quickly come to a 'Yes' or 'No' in the last two questions, then that is why we don't have constructive dialogue between people with opposing views. Again, we're not talking about blatant discrimination. We're talking about a position of leadership and influence.

For example, if a person has religious views that women should not work, should they be part of the open source community? Of course. Should they be a leader of the community and have prominent speaking roles?

It's no different than the 1st amendment. No laws can be made to punish you for speaking, but you can't just say whatever you want without consequence.

I'd hope that people would take a breath and really think about that. Is it discrimination if you ask that person to relinquish their leadership role? Who is excluded because of that person being in leadership? Who has been silenced out of fear that the power of leadership trumps their voice?

I personally do not know the answers to the two questions, but I'm open to hearing both sides. I also understand how difficult it is to have an answer when you're responsibility is to put people in leadership. With open source, it's even more complicated because you could 'become a leader' simply by being great at contributing!

Because some things are a choice, and some things are not. Some things can be turned off and some things cannot.

Gender (and gender identity), along with race, are things that cannot be unshed.

The language you choose to speak, what music you listen to, and whether you choose to share your sexuality, while they are differences, they cannot be instantly detected.

The natural heuristic we use drawing upon our experiences in an American society have a unique relationship with gender and race. It is especially because those things are non-choices and instantaneously recognizable, that they are the most important to address first.

The thought that qualification has a direct correlation to perceived binary problems, like building a nuclear reactor, is exactly the reason why this problem exists.

I reference it in my talk (not on the last slide), but I invite you to read the story of Valeria Aurora (it's been referenced on HN before): http://bit.ly/1WZiNYQ

Her unique experience perspective to a mathematical problem is quintessential. The same is true for the women featured in the Hidden Figures movie.

Concluding that 'hard science' and 'hard math' realms don't benefit from diversity and only knowledge is why tackling this problem is so hard.

I didn't realize the links had expired.

Here is a page linked to the research and modeling I ascribe in my talk: http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/research-2/diversity-r...

Specifically:

http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/wp-content/uploads/sit...

http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/wp-content/uploads/sit...

http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/wp-content/uploads/sit...

> it speaks of diversity in knowledge and problem solving approaches, rather than race, gender, age and other identifying features

The key piece is how you connect that statement to your next statement of what defines 'top' and 'very good'. Your heuristic is coding output. Code and programming has context. In most cases, it's a business context.

The point is value can be derived from experiences uniquely tied to race and gender, especially given how we're taught race and gender. It often doesn't coincide with reality.

That intrinsic value, of lived experience, shapes thought. It shapes how people approach problems. That value has to be tapped. Those evaluating talent (and its potential) often cannot 'see' why it should be a factor.

This is a limitation of the evaluators' local optima (referenced in the research).

I understand the tendency to conclude 'that is great, but are they qualified b/c that is what matters' logic. It's something you (especially if you were educated in America, like me) have to consciously unlearn.

For those that want the science and math behind diverse teams (as I've given this talk numerous times), there are bunch of links on the last slide of my deck: http://slides.com/fmitchell/how-math#/10

If you want to see the actual talk I gave at O'Reilly, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02HS9wjgfQY

what am i missing here? a look at their TOS:

"The software may collect information about you and your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft. Microsoft may use this information to provide services and improve our products and services. For this pre-release version, users cannot opt out of data collection. Some features in the software may enable collection of data from users of applications you develop using the software."

I've worked in both remote and in-house teams. I can't stress enough how important it is to go to conferences together.

It doesn't need to be the whole team at the same time, but I believed it was my job as manager to make sure my team could go to conferences (dev, UX, IA, design) in groups.

Those situations have an uncanny ability to blend excitement, thought-provoking questions, a bit of insecurity, and plans of action.

When folks returned, both remote and in-house, it lead to better camaraderie and better output. Experiences are things people share and hold onto.

> It becomes increasingly important to value each member of a programming team regardless of gender, age, race, or creed to attract and keep the best minds to build our future software.

And this is actually what you don't want to do. You don't want to ignore gender, age, race, or creed. You want people to understand it, be open to the value it brings, connect with others outside their comfort zone, and embrace the differences. Doing things 'regardless' is how we've got here in the first place. We are all different. Ignoring those differences is not helping the problem.

This is awesome! I just signed up. A couple of questions:

- If I want add my own app, will there be docs/examples on how to do that? I'd love to have my own app to deploy something like Jenkins.

- What are the backup options? If I want to grab a snapshot locally (just b/c), is that possible?

"I wish they had people in there for this last two years that could make the trains run on time, not somebody who has big ideas"

We need both. The conundrum is that improvements are done through constant iteration and ideation. Government implementation is plagued by fear of fiat and fear of failure. The implementers need to be protected by the big idea people from the skeptics.

i'm confused. what/why is gannett (in 2013)?

as a 'backend' dev who is constantly working on their design language education, it's further proof that design is everything.

Very excited to play with this. While I know many poo-poo PHP, it still is a pretty decent gateway language.

If these type of innovations introduce hobby programmers into more professional practices and concepts, I'm all for it.

great job!

as a bonus, it gives those interested in laravel a chance to see other packages to use for various functionality.

https://github.com/hillelcoren/invoice-ninja

definitely curious if this will there ever use a paid business model. i'm guessing a more robust feature set for a monthly fee?

i guess no one sees the irony that validation in their mind comes in the form of the co-founder 'owning up'.

if he had been silent or refuted the statements (maybe on advice from their lawyers), would that undermine Julie's credibility?

if so, why?

cool. a Drupal site. :-)

I wonder if this type of fasting is only advised under doctor supervision. I'd be interested in trying it, but is there enough published of the 'unsuccessful' stories? What are the risks?

they need to fire their plastic surgeon if a font update and spacing is what is considered a facelift.

great insight into the process.

not being an apologist, but i'm curious as to what the alternative would be.

if i believed that more open information was the solution to factual journalism, then i'd have more sympathy for this report.

the truth, however, is that journalists spin context of information (with graphs, info charts, interactive elements, and polls) to sell ads and get more eyeballs.

while i agree that obama has been extremely heavy-handed with retaliation on whistleblowers, the report ignores the bias that also exists within media outlets to add their own context to sell more, rile up a base, or attract more advertising investment.

looks great! definitely will have to try this out.

it's a little discouraging, however, that the issue queue has so many pull requests, comments, etc. without comment.

i love the concept of simplicity and i'm sure the maintainers have a roadmap in mind. it'd be nice if that was communicated a bit so i can know how simple they plan to keep it.

a better link: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https://raw.github.com/st...

This also helps me explain the full stack to my dev team.

Give it to me for freeeeee!!!!

But listen to me when I tell you how to run your service that costs money.

Riiiiigghhhttt.

God speed aaron.

while focusing on short-term, ego-stroking opportunities makes things exciting, i'd also recommend setting 10-year goals.

what do you want at 30? at 40?

the chain of your short-term decisions should connect to fulfill your ten year goals. this will help make whatever short-term decision you need to make not feel so aimless, soul-crushing, or rash.

at the end of the 10 years, you can proudly look back and see how each opportunity help fulfill a larger purpose.

This actually seems like an avenue for revenue for municipalities who have budget shortfalls.

Create short-term, non-complicated licenses that expire after a couple of days. Require signature of surrounding neighbors. Charge $25.

I can see that being good to the coffers.

Two key quotes:

It was like someone had written a Murphy's Law algorithm and deployed it at scale.

and

...with technical people, it's one thing to look at their resumes and another to see how they are viewed among their peers

Test.Test.Test.Test.

Don't be a dick, no matter how smart you are or how much you know. Playing nice is more important.

as an american, context is not in our vocabulary. this was funny as shite, though.

It's definitely an interesting concept, but does assume a certain 'buffer' level of class and income level to go down this road.

Having a home to be in while you 'get up to speed in poker', having parents that understand and provide some sort of boundaries at 18 years old, assuming poker winnings will be the base 'bank' for all other ventures, and assuming that the networks you make at school are not very important are big red flags for me.

For some, going to college, despite the hand-wringing, is also a way to break cycles of poverty within a lineage, a sense of family pride, and an escape from their home circumstance.

It's a little disconcerting that the author is a little lost in their own privilege and that his Hustler's MBA curriculum is probably a product of previous generations who went to college.

I think the better message is: Don't expect college, however many years you spend, to GIVE you everything or ANSWER everything. You still have to live life, take chances, and exist outside of your comfort zone. College is a concrete foundation to that mission.